Posts Tagged ‘boating’

Life had been conspiring for a long time to keep my buddy and I off a boat at the same time. It had been more than a year since we both had time to hit the flats together.

May 20th, my daughter and son had school things during the day so I took the day off. I wrapped up kid stuff early afternoon and made the call to Doug to see if he was still on for later in the day. Doug says “Dude, I’m ready now!”

Sweet–out the door I went. We hit the water around 2:30 and started catching fish almost immediately. Trout,redfish, jacks and ladyfish for about 5 hours. We didn’t catch any snook, but did see an upper slot fish and one monster snook. We ended the day with about a dozen trout, one red and several other fish.

On a side note, it was hot. Not just the air, but the water too. I haven’t had the temperature sensor on the boat calibrated, but, as you’ll see in the video, we were getting water temps from 86-92 degrees. Even if the sensor is off my a few degree, that is pretty warm for mid-May.

Here is the video from the trip. I had a great time. It was good to bend a rod with one of my best friends.

My wife and I headed out again after our near catastrophic motor failure last weekend. We hit the water before the sun peaked over the horizon.

The wind was screaming before 6 am, and I knew it was going to be a tough day for fishing. We made an excellent drift through a little cove that has been good to me in the past, but came up with a big goose egg.

We made it a short morning due to the wind and the fact my wife and I had a big date night planned.

While we didn’t get any fish, we did get some nice video footage of sunrise over the Indian River Lagoon. I hope you enjoy!

So there I sat 100 yds from the boat ramp hoping we would hit one of the pilings on the bridge. I was thinking, “It’s just a little bad gas in the carbs. The boat hasn’t been run in a while. I’ll just drain the carbs and we’ll be good to go.” WRONG!!!!

After being towed back to the ramp by some very friendly and greatly appreciated brother fishermen, I started to dig into the problem. Apparently, while I was in the hospital, I left the plug in the boat. That was the week we had torrential rain and of coarse the boat filled with water. I really didn’t give it a lot of thought until yesterday. I ended up taking nearly 8 gallons of water out of the tank. Considering I only had 7 gallons of gas in it, you can see the problem.

I had pure water in the carburetors, filters, fuel pump and lines.

I spent all afternoon Saturday replacing and draining everything. I was very concerned about the motor. Thankfully, I pumped some fresh fuel through it this morning and it started right up. Talk about being relieved. Now, I just need to figure out how the water got into the tank.

It looks like things will be ready for next weekend.

I wish I had something good to say or a lighthearted comment, but unfortunately, the news is bad. The extended cold has cause a fish kill of historic scale.

The damage may be catastrophic. I have seen the snook cold before, but I have never seen the cold leave so many species dead and dying. In one small area, we saw snook, trout, tarpon, redfish, ladyfish, pompano, mullet, pufferfish, triggerfish, grouper, snapper and multiple types of baitfish lying dead in the water and on the shoreline. Frighteningly, this is a scene being repeated from one end of the state to the other and on both coasts.

We are currently waiting for this video to be vetted by CNN, so hopefully, it will be on CNN very soon.

It looks like the weather will  be warming over the next week. Sadly, many of the fish that are dead are breeding stock females. Those loses are not replaceable. This may have long lasting effects for generations to come.

For more information and current updates visit the folks at the Snook Foundation.

Spent our long holiday weekend on the water.  Enjoyed a beautiful sunset before a lightning storm chased us off the water.  Thought you might enjoy a peek into the afternoon, so we’ve put together a little video for you. Enjoy!

We also took a few pictures while out on the water.